Lost to the World
by Daroga
Summary: A conversation between Erik and Nadir. Nadir convinces Erik to try to find a real job. Reviews loved.


**Lost to the World**

**Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Phantom, Phantom of the Opera, or any of the characters mentioned here. **

**A/N: Please leave reviews! I really appreciate them. This is from Erik's POV. **

Nadir visited me often. He was a good friend, and I valued him as one. At times we would spend the day together, playing chess, chatting, and eating, (though if truth be told it was mostly him doing the eating). I never liked food. I just ate it out of necessity. At other times he would annoy me, lecturing me on this and that and repeating himself so many times that I would get a headache. But I was all too aware that even at these times, I wanted him there.

Sometimes I looked meaningfully at my lasso, as if to warn him that if he did not stop death was in store. But he knew I would never hurt him. Our years of friendship and my debt to him made it inconceivable that I would ever think of hurting him. So of course he wouldn't stop what he was doing and I had to be content to sigh and look out into space as if his words meant nothing to me. Sure I replied sometimes, but it wasn't often that I overcame my stubbornness to agree with him.

Before he had started visiting me, I had almost managed to convince myself that I did not belong to this world. I didn't belong to that place above where couples walked hand in hand and the sunlight shone again even after the darkest night. In my home of shadows I had no obligation to anyone. I could concentrate purely on music and magic. And yet there was always a need-a need that I often cursed myself for having-a very human need. And that was the need for other people. What use was all my music and inventions if no other being could know of them? My terrible ugliness masked my talent just as the mask I wore hid my face from the world. Nadir fought my pain, my insecurities, my anger, my ugliness, so that he could preserve the beauty deep within me. He was like a light drawing me back from the darkness.

"Erik," he would say seriously, "you must leave this place. You must rouse yourself from this inhuman slumber and become the man I know you can be."

I would laugh at his words and contradict him. "Monster, you mean. The monster you know I can be." I said things like this to hide the truth-he was right, as he usually was. I shouldn't spend the rest of my life wasting away in this "dreadful place" as he called it. The problem was that I was stubborn. And afraid. How would the world above treat me? In my life I had experienced more than my share of pain from human hands. It left me distrusting and sometimes I felt it would be easier to just crawl back into my house and try to forget people again. I had Ayesha, and at least with her I knew there would be no harsh words. I found over the years that words really do have the ability to hurt someone. Perhaps even more so than physical abuse, because physical abuse may harm your body, but harsh words harm that which is perhaps a more important part of one's self: the soul. I could sometimes forget what I did not want to remember, but I remember that as a child, the thing that hurt only slightly less than being degraded and stuck in a cage was the words of my mother. She hated me for ever being born. And she told me in no uncertain terms. One does not forget the love he is denied.

There came a day in which I was in a particularly good mood, and after a series of half-hearted protests Nadir convinced me to enter the "real world." I put on my mask(I had taken to not wearing it when Nadir was around. He had assured me that my appearance did not bother him), and we were on our way to the market. Nadir had a certain fondness for a type of sweet they sold there and he wanted me to try it. He also wanted to buy some food for his dinner. We were nearly there when I was accosted by a stranger who pointed me out to his friend and laughed. Nadir put his hand on my shoulder as I stiffened, my teeth gritted together.

"Ignore them," he said quietly as we walked on past. But when a couple walked by, the woman regarded me with eyebrows raised and the man made a joke about the mask and what I must be hiding underneath it. Then he called me a corpse, a skeleton who had risen from the grave. Was this what I had left my home for? To be regarded with scorn every step of the way? I was angered and desperately wanted to hurt the man but I knew that if I did the police would come and this would draw more attention to me than I wanted. I had the sudden urge to fling off my mask and terrify the idiotic couple. I didn't realize until a while later how accurate the man's description of me had been. In my mind, I considered myself as a sort of corpse, a man who had risen from hell and who now walked among the normal people. I stopped in my tracks. "Erik…" Nadir started.

"Don't 'Erik' me, Nadir. Did you _hear_ what he said?"

"Yes I did, and you'd do best to ignore him. He is a fool. Remember, please, that this is not Persia and those that you dislike cannot be disposed of in your torture chamber." He had to bring that up. I was about to come back with some scathing retort but decided against it. My ability to control myself surprised me greatly that day.

We finally reached the market and I browsed around until I saw that Nadir was done buying what he had wanted. Meanwhile people had been staring at me like I was some kind of oddity. It almost made me wish that everybody in the market wore masks so that for just once I could be like everybody else. Finally I had had enough. I was just not comfortable being there.

"Let's go to your flat," I said to Nadir. It was not a suggestion.

"Come on, Erik, are you really going to let them bother you that much?" Apparently he had noticed the people's looks too.

"I was only saying we should go to your flat because it is too hot and the sun is burning my skin."

"Ah. Right," he said, though I knew he didn't believe me. All I wanted was to be away from the inquiring eyes of all those people.

And so we went to Nadir's flat. When Nadir stepped through the door, his servant, Darius, greeted him respectfully, but as soon as Darius saw me he frowned.

"You went to get him," he accused my friend. I already knew that Darius didn't like me, but the least he could have done was show some courtesy. "I've told you he is not a man you want to be seen with. He is dangerous." The nerve of that man! He talked as though I wasn't even there!

"I don't remember it being your place to question me, Darius," Nadir said. Darius gave me a hard look. He was itching to say more, probably to warn his master to be wary of me, but instead he walked into another room.

It was quite a plain residence from what I could see, and not half as nice as his home in Persia, which saddened me. It was because of me that he no longer had that home. It was also very neat and clean, though I wondered if it would be so if Darius weren't there. Suddenly, Nadir said,

"I have a proposition for you."

"Oh, really?" I said.

"Yes. And before you say no, I want you to know that I will not relent until you say yes."

"Always so charming, my Daroga…"

"I want you to get a flat here." I looked at him as though I thought he were crazy.

"Me? Here?"  
"Not necessarily here, although I do wish you would move in somewhere close."

"So you can continue spying on me."

"I'm not spying on you."

"What else do you call spending one or two days a week at my house?"

"Friendship, Erik. I call it friendship." He knew the word had once been foreign to me. He had changed that, and I did not yet no if it was for better or for worse. "So, let's not get off the subject. Will you do it?"

"Absolutely not." Nadir stared at me. "What?"

"I was really hoping you'd say yes. It would save me a lot of talking."

"Don't waste your breath. Nothing you say will make me do it."

"Why not?" He knew very well why not.

"There are a dozen reasons."

Nadir sighed. "You cannot keep living in that dreadful place."

"_There he goes again," _I thought, _"calling it a dreadful place." "_It is not dreadful. It is my refuge from humanity."

"Exactly! That's the problem! You need to be with other people, make friends. Maybe even find love." Poor Nadir. Part of him knew the possibilities of that were almost nil. But the other part of him hoped I _could _find love somehow, that a woman could look beyond my face and see the good in me.

"No one will ever love me. Don't lie to yourself."

"Listen to me," Nadir said, "You have no chance of meeting someone if you stay underneath the opera house. If you live like a normal person, you _will _have a chance. You know, sometimes I think you're afraid of love." I, afraid of love? I, who had craved it for so long? And yet it made sense. I _was_ afraid of love. Afraid of falling in love with a woman who didn't love me back.

"I'm not afraid," I said, and left it at that.

"Come on, Erik…"

"No."

"You're as stubborn as ever. Darius," the Persian called over his shoulder, "bring us some tea. We're going to be here for quite a while."

"I could just leave, you know, and never have to listen to you again."

"I know," Nadir replied, smiling, "but you won't." Darius brought us our tea, making an effort not to look at me. "Give me one reason you won't do it," Nadir said.

"Money." He nodded. My only source of income was the money I made as the "opera ghost," the money the managers of the opera gave me. If I ceased to be the opera ghost, I would no longer receive that money.

"That is easily solved," he said calmly. "All you need to do is get a real job."

"As what?"  
"Well, what are you good at? Other than music, architecture, ventriloquism, and scaring people?"  
"Nothing."

Nadir was so very patient. "I know!" he said suddenly. "Of course! It's so obvious!"  
"What?" I asked apathetically

"You could compose music for the opera."

"Some of that music I hear is absurd. Amateur. Boring."

"Good! Then you can make it better." He sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, looking triumphant. The idea sounded good, despite my urge to prove him wrong.

"The managers will want to know about me. What work I've done in the past," I said.

"Let them hear one of your compositions and they won't even need a resume." I thought about it. And then I grinned.

"You win."

If I had known what would happen later I would never have said so.

Two days later, I went to the interview. When I arrived at the interview, dressed in a new black suit and wearing my mask, I was greeted with looks of surprise from the managers. The interview did not go well. The managers demanded that I remove my mask, and I refused. Consequently they bade me farewell and wished me luck finding a job elsewhere. I stormed out in a rage, a myriad of emotions welling up inside me. Sadness, anger, despair, hate…nothing ever went right. I was so upset that I wasn't looking where I was going and ran right into Nadir who had been waiting expectantly for me to come out. He almost fell over. "Erik!" he gasped. He hadn't seen me this upset in a while. It was as if everything I had ever tried and failed was coming back to haunt me. Even he had to admit to himself that all the times I had tried to make myself a part of the community, I had failed miserably. I guessed I would just go back home now…

My eyes became wet with tears. Nadir was looking at the floor with pursed lips as we walked. I don't think either of us knew where he was going. A light rain began to fall and slowly the passerbys faded away into cabs or nearby buildings, leaving Nadir and I alone. He gave me a slight smile as if to say "It will be alright", and we stood there like that for a moment, the rain mingling with my tears. I had never known a better friend. I expected I never would.

"I know you tried," he said. "That's what counts. There are other jobs. I could look for you…"

"No," I interrupted. "Don't-don't waste your time. I know my place, and it's not in your world. Goodbye." I walked away then, towards my home in the opera house. My heart was heavy and I wanted to tell him to come with me, to go to my house so that we could talk and be like normal friends. But I knew I had to let him go. If I was finally going to live my life in any semblance of peace, I would have to forget about everyone else. Lose myself in my music, music that despite its beauty, would never be heard by another living soul.


End file.
